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Monday, February 08, 2016

Grass cutting changes on the way?

Below is a press release from Highland Council. Obviously savings are to be made so will Nairn suffer? Many in the town argue that standards should be high to promote our tourism image. What will our new area committee make of this? They might get a bit of a budget for grass cutting but will it be enough?

"New standards have been set out for grass-cutting across the Council area to meet statutory requirements and achieve savings.

There is no statutory requirement that amenity grass must be cut, however, the Council has various duties to maintain public safety, deliver education in accordance to national standards, deliver a burial service, maintain roads and paths in a safe condition and support national play initiatives. To discharge these duties requires varying minimum standards of grass cutting to be delivered.

Results from panel and Community Council surveys during 2015 show that maintenance of burial grounds, sports pitches and play areas are a very high priority for local communities and the new arrangements will allow for prioritisation of these areas.

Grass cutting has been categorised into three groups as: Statutory with no scope for change of standard; Statutory with a reduction of standard or transferral possible; and Non-statutory where grass cutting could be reduced, ceased or transferred.

The amendment of specifications for grass cutting enables a financial saving to be secured.

Some parks, gardens and recreational spaces, banks, paths and urban verges, which have previously been regularly cut during the growing season, will be reviewed and some categories can be changed to Conservation grass.

It is intended that an allocation of the grass-cutting budget will be put to local area committees for prioritisation and local decisions in future years. There will be opportunities to also consider the transferral of some grass-cutting to community groups.

Chair of Community Services, Cllr Allan Henderson said: “This proposal allows for prioritisation of the grass cutting service across a range of areas. In this way, we will ensure our statutory requirements will be met whilst meeting minimum standards that enable some substantial savings to be made in the context of a reducing budget and a reducing workforce. This policy should also mean we have a more attractive environment for our wildlife across the Highlands.” "

14 comments:

I hope it does mean a better environment for our wildlife. For some years now I have been asking people to pull nice fresh grass to feed the swans, much better than throwing them stale white bread. We dont need manicured grass everywhere all the time...as long as people pick up after their dogs, no problem !

Nothing new here - this was piloted some 15 years ago under the banner of Community Works but the Council ditched the process in pursuit of best value practice! Makes you wonder where we would have been had adapted this way of engaging respective Highland Communities in the decision making process for services at local level. Fifteen years lost however perhaps they may get it right this time but I doubt it as annual fiscal constraint from Holyrood equates to further deterioration of all services as the years pass by.

There are certainly some areas that are currently just grass and owned by the council that could be sold off as building plots. Double win for the council as no more grass cutting and they would accrue some funds from the sale of the land

Or groups could adopt a green space near their home? An area I visited recently did just that. Local community groups set up and maintained play areas and took responsibility for the play areas too. By taking informal 'ownership' of public land, vandalism, littering and dog fouling reduced almost overnight. It took a bit of organising apparently, but so far works really well. Could be extended to the High School, get pupils involved. Just a suggestion mind.

Great idea let the community volunteers take full responsibility for grounds,play and roads maintenance. Throw in refuse collection and street cleaning and we'll have a full house! The savings accrued should allow the Council to meet the budget gap and also reduce manpower across the Highlands